[Avodah] history

[Moshe Y. Gluck]

R' ET (old):
> This whole attitude is so a-historical as to be disturbing
MYG:
And Tosfos about Pinchas, Eliyahu, and Beis Hakvaros?
R' ET (new):
We have discussed before that chazal have a tendency to identify
together people who seem to have nothing in common. In many cases it
makes people hundreds of years old or on the contrary had children
very early when there is no reason in pshat for this. In fact by
Eliyahu and many other such cases there are other sources that dispute
these connects. Hence, some explain that these people had
characteristics in common or were a gilgul of one another etc.

As MYG points out one difficulty is when the gemara or rishonim try
and learn halachot from these identifications.




Actually, what I was trying to point out was that Chazal did believe that
the historical facts were such, to the degree that they were confident
learning Halachos from them. Considering that they were way closer to the
time  that these events happened, it seems to me that one should hesitate
very long before dismissing them by explaining that they were wrong or
talking about metaphysical matters, just because we don't see the connection
now.

KT,
MYG